Healthy employees are happier employees; and happier employees are more productive. While health insurance companies have an incentive to offer preventative care, which not only keeps people healthier but reduces the cost of care for undiagnosed illnesses once the y come to light, not very many employers have though about the benefit of keeping their employees healthy. One great way to keep your employees healthy and motivated is to offer exercise programs they can stick with on their own time.
Consider a Motivational Challenge
Offering your employees a fitness or exercise challenge has multiple benefits. Let’s say, for example, you challenge them to walk a certain number of miles over a 10-week period. You’d partner them with pedometers or GPS devices and allow them to track their miles. They might work individually or in teams. At the end of the challenge, everyone who participated receives some sort of incentive, while those who met and/or exceeded the goal earn higher incentives.
You’ve not only motivated them with something not related to work, but you’ve also given them something to help reduce their stress levels. Their healthier habits will help them to avoid and prevent illness, which means they’ll miss less work because of unplanned sick time as well.
Tracking Progress
If a fitness program is going to become a part of your corporate culture, you’ll want to implement it in a formal manner. Programs you can find online, for example you can read about fitbug, offer equipment and tools you can use to regularly issue this type of motivational challenge. They also come with pre-designed challenges you can choose from, all of which have been used by other corporations in the past.
You’ll combine the tools your employees are using to track progress with reports offered through the system. These reports will allow you to set incentive programs and properly reward those who are really working hard towards meeting their goals. Having access to regular reports will also make it easy for you to add “surprises” to the prize pool from time to time.
You’ll be surprised at the benefit a little exercise can have in your office. Human resources experts who have implemented this type of program have admitted to being surprised at how well they were received. Their employees were happier, communicated better, and had better attitudes overall. Some companies even used these programs to give their employees incentives to walk shorter distances to meetings rather than wasting company car pool resources.
Exercise is healthy and motivational – and a win-win in any situation. Find a formal program, set some goals, and encourage your employees to participate. They’re guaranteed to have some fun in the process!